Donate today to keep Global Voices strong!

Our global community of volunteers work hard every day to bring you the world's underreported stories -- but we can't do it without your help. Support our editors, technology, and advocacy campaigns with a donation to Global Voices!

On April 4, the law “which regulates liability for infringement of copyright and related rights on the Internet,” called “Law Lleras [es],” was presented before the Congress of Colombia. This law seeks to be consistent with the obligations for the possible acquisition of a free trade agreement with the United States. The name of the law is in honor of its creator [es], the Minister of Interior and Justice, Germán Vargas Lleras.

[...] with this bill all of us that use the Internet to share or download music, movies, books, articles, etc. without paying copyright could be penalized even with jail. It would also sanction service providers (ETB, Telefonica, Telmex, EPM, UNE, Comcel, Tigo, Movistar, Etc …) who facilitate “piracy” or illegal copying of such content, which will force these companies to block pages, P2P ports, suspend access to users and even cut off the service.

This has raised concerns in thousands of netizens who have reacted on social networks.

The dailyEl Tiempo points out the protagonists from both sides of the debate:

[...] on the one hand there are the advocates of free software and, on the other hand, content authors, singers, film directors and businessmen, calling for a relentless fight against piracy on the net.

Created by Eneko for 20minutos.es and 20 minutos (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The new site Recrea [es] defends the project, and among other things, says:

Re-Crea considers that the situation created by the bill, known as “Ley Lleras”, is a unique opportunity to lay the groundwork for what will be the respect for a free digital society, for the free exchange of ideas and for cultural creation, stemming from a collective dialogue in Colombia.

In his blog [es], Luis Ángel Pérez tells readers to prepare for the law; while Sergio Augusto Ovalle, in his blog Continental Cyberlaw [es], proposes a way to face these new copyright challenges realistically:

Lovers of free culture that enacted the new paradigm of the free dissemination of culture and information have developed mechanisms such as free “Creative Commons” licenses by which I decide what can be done with my work, eliminating the middleman who handles my copyright, and thus being more consistent with the fans, or with users who benefit personally with intellectual creations.

In equinoXio [es], Carolina Botero [es] raises the concern that internet is a means and not an end. She also writes about the bill's procedures that are inconsistent with existing laws of the country:

Piracy— as people with a very closed vision of how cultural movement in this century works—, is not fixed with laws that prosecute pirates, it is fixed by adjusting prices, as well as patterns of production and distribution. There is no evidence that downloads affect the culture monopoly, on the contrary.

Carlos Armando Cuervo, in his blog Pulso de Opinión [es], says he disagrees with the writing and design of the bill:

For the last two days we've been witnessing a new episode of legal arrogance and conceptual confusion in the drafting and presentation of the new law that “regulates liability for infringement of copyright and related rights on the Internet.”

On Facebook users have created pages and accounts against the law; while on Twitter users manifest a number of complaints and report cyber-attacks on Law Lleras and government [es] websites.

Electronic engineer Carlos E. Velazquez V (@cevelasquezv) relates the law to similar regulations like law Sinde from Spain, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):